Head People Partner, India

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the India People Partnering organization (~25) as a leader of leaders (~3+), building a high-performing cross-divisional team that delivers consistent, credible, and end-to-end P&O support to 9,000+ employees.
• Strengthen the One P&O mindset by harmonizing People Partnering processes, standards, and ways of working across business units, while collaborating with Country P&O, Business Partners, Global Business Partners, COEs, and site leaders to deliver integrated people solutions.
• Shape and execute the India People Partnering agenda in alignment with business priorities and global P&O strategy, driving key people initiatives, organizational change, culture and people experience efforts, compliance, and future-ready capability building.
• Build and sustain a high performing India People Partnering team, fostering a collaborative and accountable culture that enables impact, agility, and an enterprise mindset in an evolving organizational landscape.
• Lead leaders effectively by setting clear direction, building capability, driving accountability, and ensuring outcomes are delivered through empowered, high performing teams.
• Role model and strengthen the “One P&O” ethos across People Partnering and the broader P&O ecosystem, enabling seamless collaboration across country, regional, and global stakeholders.
• Engage proactively with site leaders and key stakeholders, building strong partnerships to clarify expectations, shape priorities, and ensure consistent execution of people initiatives.
• Influence without authority in a matrixed environment by cultivating strong global and local partnerships with COEs, Business Partners, Global Business Partners, and other critical internal and external stakeholders.
• Sponsor, lead, and inspire country level people initiatives, ensuring strong alignment with business priorities and disciplined execution across sites and functions.
• Identify and manage interdependencies across cross functional teams and COEs, driving clarity, connecting the dots, and enabling integrated planning, timely execution, and organizational agility.
• Provide leadership on India wide labour compliance, institutionalizing robust governance, audit discipline, and risk mitigation frameworks in close partnership with cross functional teams.
• Own and lead P&O policy at the country level, shaping line manager and employee experience; act as the single point of contact for standards, controls, and risk management, and serve as the escalation point for exceptions, deviations, and appeals.
• Lead the local implementation of large scale organizational changes, including structural transformations, transitions, and integrations, ensuring effective change management, business continuity, and alignment with country policies.
• Demonstrate a growth mindset and exploratory approach to challenge the status quo, leveraging AI tools, agents, and emerging capabilities to drive efficiency and elevate value creation. Continuously reassess practices to stay relevant, while adapting to new ways of working and role modelling curiosity and experimentation.
• Leverage data, insights, and metrics to anticipate demand trends, assess team capacity, identify risks, and ensure the People Partnering team is equipped to meet evolving business needs.
• Act as a critical liaison with the global people partner excellence teams driving the implementation of global initiatives at a local level, ensuring there is a good understanding of local implications on people and operating models for successful global roll outs (e.g EPIC, India labour code etc)

Essential Requirements:

• 20+ years of experience in HR partnering role/s with strong experience in people management.
• MBA or equivalent in Human Resources is preferred.
• Ability to partner with senior business leaders and HR peers to deliver the talent agenda, with strong stakeholder management and influencing capabilities.
• Role‑model self‑awareness and a growth mindset through continuous learning, acknowledging gaps, and personal accountability.
• Enterprise mindset with a decisive bias for action.
• Business acumen – connecting the dots to balance strategic and operational priorities.
• Lead as a coach and servant leader, enabling others to succeed.
• Exceptional stakeholder management with strong influencing capability.

Desirable Requirements:

• Experience in leveraging AI to simplify people processes, reduce duplication, and shift team capacity toward higher impact, value adding work.
• Experience in Global/ MNC and complex & matrixed organizations.